Chick, Harriette (1875-1977)

English nutritionist. While investigating nutritional disorders in Vienna after World War I she helped to establish that sunlight and dietary cod-liver oil, rich in vitamin D, could eliminate childhood rickets, a bone deficiency previously thought to be infectious. On her return to London in 1922 she made extensive studies into the role of vitamins. She was made DBE in 1949.

Chick was sent to Vienna by the British Medical Research Council (MRC), and conducted her pioneering research into rickets with her colleague Elsie Dalyell (1881-1948). She later served as secretary of the Accessory Food Factors Committee, established by the MRC and the Lister Institute, which co-ordinated, assessed, and publicized research and information on nutritional matters.

She was born in London, and educated in West London and at University College London 1894-96. In 1905 she joined the Lister Institute, despite some resistance to the appointment of a woman, and remained there until her retirement at the age of 95.